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Minotaurs
Back to Races ---- Buildings Units ''Thrall - Primitive Builder'' Thralls are the base builder unit for the Minotaurs and Barbarians. Thralls are slaves that many other races including the Orcs, Dark Elves, Undead and Daemons utilise (via a Slavehorde ability. If they are produced this way they cost gold and are produced instantly en mass). As they can be summoned instantly or produced quickly by Barbarians and Minotaurs, filling mines is relatively quick and/or inexpensive compared to most other builders. ''Minotaur - Minotaur Basic Infantry'' The Minotaur is the basic infantry of the Minotaur race. At its initial production, it is reasonably tough albeit quite expensive. However once fully upgraded, it can be a very powerful melee unit that should be feared. The minotaur can go beserk and drunk which makes Minotaurs incredibly dangerous, massively boosting their speed and combat at the cost of 1 damage per second. ''Axe Thrower - Minotaur Missile Unit'' The Axe Thrower is the Minotaur's basic missile unit. Comparatively to missile units of other races, they are quite tough but have a low range. Similarly to the Barbarian, the Axe Thrower's projectile can pass through multiple enemies, making them good at firing upon enclosed enemy armies. A unique ranged damage type in slashing means that the Axe Thrower requires no upgrades to deal respectable damage to buildings. ''Basilisk - Monstrous Missile Unit'' A unique (and comparatively cheap) unit for the Minotaurs, giving them the ability to gather Stone much faster. This allows the Minotaurs to produce Gnolls en-masse and construct the particularly Stone-heavy buildings easier such as Arenas. The cold damage Basilisks provide is potentially quite a powerful weapon. The resistance to slashing, very high armour and resistance stats allow it to tank plenty of combat action (but keep in mind their vulnerability to crushing). ''Gnoll - Monstrous Assassin'' Gnolls are relatively average melee units (in every stat) which are very easy to produce if the Minotaur player is using Basilisks (since Gnolls cost only stone, they can be spammed so long as the Minotaur player has enough Basilisks or stone production). They add little to the Minotaur race power wise, but their real distinction is in their ability: Assassination. A group of Gnolls can easily be used to scare off all but the most bold or daring of heroes as they will not risk the chance for their hero to be assassinated. Other than this, Gnolls may also be used to harass and take out particularly tough enemy units. Usually, later on the Minotaurs will have better options such as Minotaur Kings for this. ''Catapult'' See Catapult ''Battering Ram'' See Battering Ram ''Minotaur Shaman - Minotaur Spellcaster'' The Minotaur Shaman is a powerful spellcaster unit with access to destructive and dangerous buffing spells. He can effectively decimate both crowds and singular enemies using Ring of Fire and Pillar of Fire, and upgrades allow him to deal more damage with his useful base-destroying fire attack. The Minotaur Shaman can also make nearby allies beserk, which can be used to surprise opponents and decimate their forces if used correctly. That said, the Shaman should be kept away from the front line of battle due to physical weakness. ''Minotaur King'' ''- Minotaur General'' The Minotaur King is controversially the most fearsome of all generals in the game. There is no non-titan, non-hero unit that deals as much damage as a fully upgraded Minotaur King. On top of that utterly devastating attack damage, he has pretty good combat, great hits (actually drawing with the T Rex for best non-titan, non-hero, non-dragon unit hits), ignores armour (even of buildings) and causes fear in nearby enemy units. There is relatively little that can directly counter a Minotaur King other than a large army, a wall of ranged-units (requiring melee fodder support), a highly upgraded tower or a Barbarian Reaver. Strategy Overall The Minotaurs are one of the most dangerous races available in WBC3. With natural access to the best magic sphere (Pyromancy), a balanced mix of very tough, powerful and high cost units and the extremely peculiar benefit of building and eating sheep to regain health, opponents will be hard-pressed to find a hole in Minotaur defenses. Carnage and destruction only aids them further as Minotaurs also have numerous ways to gather free resources. Whether it's from toppling enemy buildings for metal, turning Basilisk victims into stone, or assassinating enemy units for gold, they certainly wont be hard pressed by the expenses of their units in a reckless game. ''The Race'' Units Minotaurs have a small but adequate selection of units. The upgrades available to these units make the race shine. Unlike most other races, the first combat unit available (the Minotaur) will remain a critical component of your force all the way until you launch your final assault on your opponent's base. With improved morale, combat, and dwarven ale/berserker skills, the simple minotaur infantry unit becomes a rampaging force of destruction. Gather a small bundle of these, pass them a beer and light them on fire - then try your best to steer them towards the enemy base, where they will demolish every tower, enemy unit, and building in sight. Minotaur Kings are the best tank unit among the generals available in the game, but like the support units, ultimately they are not necessary for the final assault either, although they most certainly can help with their nuclear 120 armour piercing slashing damage (the target can be as resistant or as armoured as it likes, only combat is able to save it because the ignore armour ability just cleaves straight through all resistances whether they're on a unit or building). If the enemy have Dragons and any Titans, Minotaur Kings counter them so ridiculously well they'll never bother spending that much resources again (unless they somehow have an entire flock of Dragons). Gnolls are something of a novelty, useful particularly for engaging or scaring away enemy heroes, who will not want to risk the chance of being assassinated (if you have loads of Basilisks, getting essentially free Gnolls is pretty useful should you need a bit of swarming). Other than that (and if you don't use Basilisks), Gnolls are completely and utterly pointless to quite an amazing extent. Minotaur Axethrowers leave something to be desired in the range department, and are usually not worth using unless you're either battling against a crushing resistant race (like the Orcs) or a swarm playstyle race where the axes can travel through multiple enemies. Minotaur Shamans are powerful when upgraded and can provide an alternative means to berserk your Minotaurs if you haven't already researched Berserker. Other than that, Shamans provide a supportive role to the Minotaur army. A few support units (Axe Throwers, Basilisks or Shamans) are adviseable to engage enemy fliers, but the siege units are hardly needed. Upgraded Minotaurs nearly always perform a better job, are cheaper and take less unit cap up than Battering Rams and Catapults should only really be used in defence or against a swarm race due to their really low speed. Basilisks are an interesting unit for the Minotaurs, they provide some nice cold damage and petrification bonuses at relatively low cost (60 Gold). Keep in mind however, that Basilisks do use up 2 unit cap, so it is advisable to keep a leash on their production. Lastly, keep a pile of sheep available to patch up any of your Minotaur forces that survive. If you are feeling particularly insane, you can use Sheep as fodder for a wave of Minotaur Shamans and/or Basilisks. Buildings The Minotaur buildings don't offer much others don't. The hardest part of the game may be the very start, as Arenas cost 100 Gold and 200 Stone (quite a lot for your main infantry building), Thralls are poor at constructing buildings and so they usually take a long time to build (not to mention the cost of Minotaurs is 100 metal, so you'd better hope to start off with a truck-load of resources at the start of the game). That's not to say that the Minotaurs are in any way rushable, but they may find it more difficult to control areas of the map without quick access and support of basic infantry units (which many other races usually get). Access to mana acceleration research isn't possible until HQ level 3 (which is quite early, especially for such a physical-based race). The main HQ building is one of the largest buildings in the game (which may prove troublesome, especially in small or cramped maps), but be thankful that you really won't need to build any more than 2. Minotaur towers offer a good amount of both hits and damage, making them easier to defend than most towers. Basilisks can really help to construct a wide range of Minotaur buildings as well, so if you are in the need of Stone don't hold back on producing a few of them. ''Heroes'' As if the drunken burning minotaurs weren't fun enough, the Minotaur hero has access to one of the best magic spheres in the game, Pyromancy (Soul Flame is great for buffing your units prior to an assault). Accordingly, Pyromancer is a good option, but since the 1.03.24 unofficial patch, the new Monk class is the best fit. The Minotaur Monk is one of the best melee combat heroes in the game, benefitting from a heavy hit and ever increasing attack speed to land more and more of them. Also, another good class to recognise is the Warrior. Compared to the Monk, the Warrior is tougher, more resilient and regenerates faster (depending on what skills you invest in) but suffers lower attack damage, attack speed and movement speed. A Chieftain is also possible, but if you go for a Chieftain, it may be best to make it a Fighter/Supporter (possibly invest in Charisma and Morale attributes and skills as well as Mighty Blow) since the Monk is better at attacking. Note: the Illusion Transform spell does not work on Sheep. However, that does not mean there aren't other abusable strategies such as using Call the Dead on piles of Sheep bones (the Sheep of which had been fed to Minotaurs), or mass producing Sheep and pressing Ctrl + D to suicide the Sheep and then using Call the Dead on the massive pile of bones for a large army of Skeletons (can use them as arrow/tower fodder whilst a wave of Minotaur Shamans, Basilisks and/or Catapults lay siege). The Mutation spell can be used very effectively to turn enemies into food for your Minotaurs. Counters *The minotaur units and researches usually cost a lot of resources. Make sure to remove mines from their possession at all costs. *Minotaur units tend to take a great deal of time to produce. If you know a guard point has no troops in or around it, it's a safe bet that there won't be any reinforcements produced by any buildings there. Watch out for any minotaur armies hidden on the map, so they cannot defend the guard post. *If a group of drunken, berserk Minotaurs is headed your way, physical combat is not an option (due to drunk, berserk level 3 Minotaurs having around 20 combat and speed). Instead, use some fodder and loads of missile units. *As with Barbarians, Minotaurs have the Thrall builder, the worst in the game (slow builder with slow speed, though he is at least created quickly) yet no Slavehorde ability. Add to this the fact that Arenas are expensive and Ziggurats are large; while not necessarily a very rushable race due to their strong units, they will certainly struggle early game, like Barbarians. Keeping the pressure on a Minotaur player might mean an early game-over for him/her. Lore